Only 28% of workers have healthy relationship with work — Report

Workers are operating from a more personalised mentality with only 28 percent of knowledge workers having a healthy relationship with work, HP Work Relationship Index (WRI) 2024 survey has revealed.

The multinational information technology company commissioned an online survey managed by Edelman Data & Intelligence (DXI) that was fielded between May 10 and June 21, 2024, in 12 countries: the US, France, India, UK, Germany, Spain, Australia, Japan, Mexico, Brazil, Canada, and Indonesia.

Across the globe, HP research found that workers’ relationships with work range from a low of 9 percent in Japan to a high of 46 percent in India. It surveyed 15,600 respondents consisting of 12,000 knowledge workers; 2,400 IT decision-makers (200 in each country) and 1,200 business leaders (100 in each country).

According to the report, Artificial Intelligence (AI) usage emerged as a key resource to drive better relationships with work while the drivers with the strongest impact on the world’s relationship with work in 2024 are leadership, fulfillment, and skills.

Countries with an increase in their WRI score felt the strongest improvements in leadership and fulfillment while countries with a decrease in their WRI score experienced declines most notably across tools, skills, and workspace.

“When asked about their relationship with work, at least two-thirds of knowledge workers and leaders are seeking a personalised experience at work. Knowledge workers place a high value on personalised work experience and 87 percent globally would be willing to forgo a portion of their salary to get it,” the report said.

It added that these experiences include working in a way that best suits their needs, personalising their workspaces, having access to different technologies that best suit their working style, and having the liberty to define and shape what a flexible working environment looks like to them.

Although, workers rely on leaders to help shape a healthy relationship with work and the research revealed that less than half of business leaders feel consistently confident in their human skills like mindfulness, communication, emotional intelligence and hard skills like computer, marketing, presentation, and writing skills.

HP said roughly 90 percent of business leaders acknowledge the positive impact of empathy, and just 28 percent of knowledge workers say they consistently see senior leadership demonstrate empathy.

“Business leaders need to seize this opportunity and gain greater confidence in their human skills to build trust with knowledge workers and help improve their relationship with work,” the report said.